


Blood Will Tell

by Luciaphile



Category: Dark Shadows (1966)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Haunted Houses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-22
Updated: 2014-11-22
Packaged: 2018-02-26 15:21:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2656889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luciaphile/pseuds/Luciaphile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Plagued with doubts about her past collusion with Barnabas Collins and by her present situation, Julia Hoffman comes upon Seaview, an abandoned house on the Collinwood estate. But is it truly empty?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood Will Tell

**Author's Note:**

> * * *

October 31, 1967

Although she was halfway from Collinwood, Julia debated about turning back. When she had taken Vicki to the Old House, the weather had seemed deceptively mild—a perfect autumn day. So perfect, that now that she’d once again conditioned Vicki to shy away from Barnabas, she couldn’t resist getting some real exercise and some air—space too perhaps. She didn’t altogether like what she was doing and becoming.

Brainwashing Vicki was the least of it; it was arguable that Julia was doing her a favor. Julia genuinely liked the girl and in his present state, Barnabas was very dangerous for Vicki, not only physically, but also emotionally. 

The wind cut through the layers of wool, right through to her bones. Julia burrowed her hands deep into the pockets of her coat. She should go back to Collinwood, she supposed. But that would mean having to confront certain things. Things she was far from ready to confront. There was Carolyn and then there was Dave’s murder . . .

Julia kept walking, the brilliantly colored leaves of crimson, amber and gold crunching beneath her feet. She didn’t pay much attention to the direction in which she ambled. It was the exercise, not the destination that mattered. She stopped once or twice, breathing in the rich blend of salt air, decay, and fresh earth, but the cold kept her moving after a moment or two. The sun didn’t seem to be doing its task today.

She was suddenly reminded of a walk that she’d taken with Dave back when they were undergraduates together. They’d been young then—young and full of hopes and dreams, dreams that were never going to come to fruition—not for Dave, anyway. Julia’s face felt stark white now and it wasn’t entirely due to the chill in the air.

Think about something else, she counseled herself. Anything else. No independent immediate subject matter came to mind, of course. All roads led to, not to Rome, but in this case to Barnabas and therefore, to Dave and that wasn’t a destination she was prepared to face right now.

And then ever so conveniently, a new topic for thought was literally before her. Julia stopped. She was familiar enough with the general layout of the Collinwood estate, even if she had not yet physically explored every inch of it. This house—the structure in front of her had to be Seaview. She recognized it from Vicki’s description. Julia smiled now thinking of the girl’s seemingly boundless enthusiasm for the house. It really was very unfortunate that Burke had been unable to buy it. Perhaps if he could have done so, he wouldn’t have decided to fly to South America on business. Perhaps if Carolyn hadn’t gone wandering where she didn’t belong, she wouldn’t be doing the bidding of Barnabas now. Perhaps if Barnabas wasn’t so obsessed with Josette, he’d be able to see how much better she, herself, was for him. Perhaps if Dave hadn’t been so bound and determined to find out the truth, he’d be alive now too.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

A movement in one of the upstairs windows caught her eye.

Julia started and craned her neck upwards. For the briefest of seconds, she thought she saw a woman’s face smiling down at her, beckoning her inside. She squinted and tried to make out more details. After a moment, she rocked back on her heels. There wasn’t anything there. But she had seen something, hadn’t she?

Maybe if she moved closer to the house, she thought. Julia continued up the drive. No. There was nothing there. The sunlight may not have been doing much to warm the air, but it flooded through Seaview and from her improved vantage point, she could make out an obviously empty room. 

Nerves. Nothing but nerves. Or a trick of the light. The next thing she knew, she’d be seeing Dave again. Nerves.

What was the house like on the inside? Julia wondered. Vicki had enthused about it for hours, but Vicki was prone to exaggerations at times and Julia recalled that Elizabeth Stoddard hadn’t thought it quite as marvelous as her nephew’s governess did. Curious now, Julia walked up to Seaview and tried the door. 

To her surprise, it was unlocked. She would have thought that Elizabeth would have seen to that. Didn’t the Collinses ever lock anything up? 

Julia pushed the heavy oak door open. Her immediate impression was negative. As was her second. But at least it was warm. She closed the door behind her and took a better look around. The rooms were well proportioned, but the rustic décor was really not to her personal taste. She was really rather surprised that Vicki had taken to the place. 

The house was aptly named. Julia hadn’t realized just how close to the ocean she was. The views from the second floor would be even more spectacular, she thought. Julia looked at the stairs carefully. They seemed solid. She tried one and then another. Oh, why not? It wasn’t like she had anything to do. Barnabas refused to let her continue with the experiments. She was halfway up the stairs when she heard it.

Whispers. Indistinguishable whispers.

Julia froze where she stood. 

Silence. 

The wind battered at the house, but nothing came from within. 

She waited. 

Silence.

She had to get a grip on herself. There was nothing here. She would just go upstairs and look out the front windows and she’d go back to Collinwood. 

Silence.

Julia took a breath and continued on. The second floor was no more prepossessing than the first, but the master bedroom commanded one of the most breathtaking views she’d ever seen. “Imagine waking up to this every morning,” she muttered aloud.

A delicious warmth enveloped her. 

“You could, you know.”

Every single infinitesimal hair on the back of Julia’s neck stood on end. “Who’s there?” She spun around, suddenly forgetting white-capped waves and rocks and ships. 

Silence.

“Who’s there?” she demanded a second time. 

“Friends.” The voice was female, elegant, unattached to any discernible entity.

There are no such things as ghosts. There are no such things as ghosts. There are no such things as ghosts.

But there were vampires. And she had seen Dave’s spirit. Wasn’t he a ghost?

“Oh, she’s going to do very nicely,” another voice, male this time, declared.

“The blonde girl would have been better,” said a third.

Julia backed up to the wall. Blonde girl. That would be Carolyn. She’d come to Seaview with Vicki and Mrs. Stoddard, Julia remembered now. Carolyn had commented on the sudden warmth. As if the house were welcoming her, she’d said.

Laughter. From far too many different parts of the room. 

The first voice was firm. “I like _this_ one. Don’t be frightened. We shan’t hurt you.”

“Not unless you want us to,” chuckled a male spirit.

Oh, God.

More laughter. How many of them were there?

“I don’t think that’s her particular vice, Edmund,” someone in the corner of the room said acidly.

Julia swallowed. “What do you want?” This couldn’t be happening. It was broad daylight. The sunshine was dancing through the windows even now.

As if in answer, someone began to draw strange symbols on the hard oak flooring. She could see neither the instrument nor the ghost doing the work, only the results. “What do you want?”

“You’re going to join with us,” the first entity told her in amused tones. “And as soon as Lucinda finishes with the necessary preparations, you shall.”

“Why can’t I see you?” Stall for time. Was there a way to get out of the house?

Laughter again.

“So impatient,” someone in another corner drawled.

“You shall as soon as the ritual is completed,” the first entity, the one who seemed to be in charge, promised her. “You’ve already seen me. I invited you in.”

Stay calm. “I don’t belong here.”

“Oh, but you do,” the spirit soothed. “I didn’t understand before, but I do now.”

Julia shook her head. Thirteen. There were thirteen of them. Why did she suddenly know that? Why did she suddenly sense them moving toward her, forming a half-circle around her, pinning her to the wall?

“Look at your hands, my dear, and you’ll know differently.”

A hypodermic tumbled toward the floor, vanishing into thin air. 

“We can keep him away from you,” the male spirit promised.

“Who?” Julia knew damn well who.

“Your victim.”

Dave. Oh, dear God, how did they know about Dave? What was she thinking? They were ghosts.

The one in charge was so close that Julia could feel her breath on her face. “We can make it so you can have the one you want. He won’t look at another woman; that’s almost unheard of in a Collins male. You’ll have him at your feet.”

There was something rotten in the air. 

The edges of the symbols on the floor began to glow and Julia could see the spirits around her beginning to take corporeal form. Blood. There was blood here too. Screams. Laughter. Abandon. Death. 

Why couldn’t she move? 

_Use your head, Julia. Run. They can’t hold you. They don’t have form. Yet._

Were those her thoughts? Or . . . 

“She’s going to be shy about it,” said a woman with lustrous brown hair and a cruel face.

“We don’t need your consent, my dear. You lost the right of refusal when you walked in this house,” the first one promised, gradually taking shape.

Julia saw bright blue eyes mocking her. 

“It’s time.”

_In the name of God and all that is holy, help me. Somebody help me. I can’t move and I can’t think. Help me._

“You mustn’t be shy.”

An icy blast shot through the room. Julia had never been so cold in her life. 

She started as she saw the figures around her step back.

“She’s ours. You cannot interfere,” the blue-eyed spirit protested. Her form grew more substantial.

A column of blue white air moved forward and once again the ghosts retreated. The spirits began to fade.

“LEAVE THIS HOUSE!”

Julia presumed she was the one being addressed. Her would-be captors were starting to dissipate, although a few of them seemed to be focusing their energies on this new entity. Julia didn’t need a second invitation. Her legs obeying the commands of her brain once again, she ran as fast as they would take her down the stairs and out of Seaview. It wasn’t until she was halfway through the woods that she stopped. She waited only as long as it took her to regain her breath. She needed to see human beings once again. Even then Julia half walked; half ran all the way back to Collinwood. 

She saw the house and began to move faster. So absorbed was she in getting to safety, she nearly ran into the path of the car pulling up the drive. The car swerved and stopped.

“Miss Hoffman? Are you quite all right?” Roger Collins asked slamming the door of his Mustang.

Trying to regain her breath, it was all Julia could do to shake her head.

“Let me help you into the house.”

She shook her head again. Not in this state. She was going to need every bit of her strength to face Carolyn and she had no intention of appearing weak.

Roger opened the car door and made her sit down. He walked around to the passenger side and joined her. “Here,” he said pulling a flask out from under his raincoat. “Drink this.”

Julia wasn’t so far gone that she didn’t raise her eyebrows.

“I don’t drink and drive. Not anymore.” He stopped, and leaving off at this tantalizing tidbit addressed her, “Never mind that. What happened?” 

The brandy burned as it went down her throat, but it felt mercifully good. “I . . . I was at Seaview.” Now that she was in the safety of the car, it was beginning to feel unreal. Roger was the original skeptic. He was going to think her mad.

To her surprise, the color on Roger’s face drained away. “Something happened to you, didn’t it?”

Julia stared at him. “I thought your family had forgotten all about the house until Vicki brought it to your attention again.”

“Liz forgot about it,” Roger corrected her. “I didn’t.”

Still Julia hesitated.

“I’ve been to Seaview,” Roger said in a distant conversational voice.

She told him the truth as far as she was able, leaving out the mentions of Dave, the hypodermic and the promise to have the one she loved.

They sat in the sports car, looking through the windshield, but not seeing.

“Don’t ever go back there,” Roger told her when she was finished. “Don’t ever talk about it again and don’t ever set foot in that house. No matter what. I’ll find a way to make certain Liz doesn’t rent it to or sell it to anyone, Collins or no, but don’t ever go back there.”

“You’ve been inside.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes.” Roger reached out for the flask. 

Julia gave it to him. “What happened?”

“Once we leave this car, we never had this conversation, is that clear?” When she nodded, he continued, “Something rather similar to your experience. I went there with a girl I was involved with. This was years ago, you understand and we—” he paused, “We wanted some privacy. After I took her home, I realized I’d left something in the house. I went back.” He swallowed some brandy. “And then I met up with the same things you did. They weren’t quite as keen on me as they appeared to be for your company, but they weren’t going to be choosy.”

“How did you get away?”

“The same way you did.”

They sat in silence for some time.

“Who were they?”

He considered her. “Have you gotten to the Victorians yet, in your family history of us?”

Julia shook her head. 

“When you do, you won’t find much. They were very skilled at keeping up appearances. That was the trick, you know, as long as they seemed respectable, they could do as they pleased.”

“Those spirits, those things—they were from that era?”

“I believe so.”

Julia noticed he didn’t name his sources. “How do you know?”

“I found some journals belonging to a relative who had recently passed away. You’ll forgive me if I don’t say more. Not that you’ll find very much.” He drank again. “The spirit who kept them at bay was most likely Caleb Collins.”

“The sea captain? The one your sister told me about?”

Roger laughed. “He was a sea captain, yes. The rest of it . . . that business about his loving the house . . . twaddle. I’ve a fair idea who the woman with the blue eyes might have been, but I’m not certain. She was an ancestor, I know that much, because the one thing that pleased her about me was that I was of her line. That leaves a number of candidates, however. Suffice it to say that there were people in this area who liked to play games. Nasty games. Caleb Collins saw to it that they stopped using Seaview as a playground. I don’t think they stopped their activities. They found other spots in life. And in death . . . If you even attempt to write about this for your book—”

“I won’t. I promise you, I won’t.”

“In death, I suspect, they’ve come back to their preferred locale.” He looked at her critically. “Good. You seem more composed. I’m going to open this door and we’re going to forget this ever happened, all right?”

Julia closed her eyes briefly and then nodded. 

They went into Collinwood and other concerns overtook them.

* * *

Seaview sat seemingly empty.

“We were so very close,” someone lamented.

A tall woman with soft dark blonde hair and china blue eyes smiled. “There will be others.”

“The red-haired one was perfect.”

Laughter.

“There will be others,” the woman repeated. “And with blood on their hands as well. There will be others.”

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Seaview was mentioned a few times and shown once. Prior to the 1795 arc, Vicki became enamored of an empty house on the estate and wanted Burke to buy it for her. Although the story was never fully developed, the inferences were that the house was haunted. I've decided to give it a few spirits, Caleb Collins who was mentioned in this nascent plot and some others from the 1840 timeline...


End file.
